Word: rite
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...hips churned like a hooker's in heat. Presley was manly too, in a street-punk way. For him, the electric guitar was less an instrument than a symbolic weapon - an ax or a machine gun aimed at the complacent pop culture of the 50s. Performing his pansexual rite to a heavy bass line, Elvis set the primal image for rock: a man and his guitar, the tortured satyr and his magic lute. He also established the androgyny of the male star. Who needed girl singers, when a guy could provide his own sexual menace, long hair, coquetry and falsetto...
There was no rebellious stage in Spitzer's life, no long-hair days. But his competitiveness, especially in athletics, was directed as much at family as friends. In some well-to-do households, there is a rite of passage in which the son finally beats the father at tennis. As a teen, Spitzer found himself near that goal one day, closing in for the kill. When his father paused to catch his breath, Spitzer called out, "Mom, Dad is stalling!" The family still talks about the time Bernard cruelly whipped his son in Monopoly...
Welcome to the William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition, which was administered for the 63rd time in its grueling history on Dec. 7. The Putnam is arguably the most prestigious math contest in the world. It's also a rite of passage for math cognoscenti--think of it as a coming-out party for the next generation of beautiful minds. Do well, and you'll earn the envy of your peers and the inside track on a future Nobel. Do badly and--well, don't feel too bad. John Nash took the test twice and never scored among the top five...
...crowd, watching these actors recombine uniquely, with all of tonight's little gaffes and unexpected epiphanies, at this moment, for their art and your pleasure. At its best a play restores, for a few hours, the age of belief. It gives you the shiver of a sacred rite, in a secular cathedral, and what you experience is communion. Can't get that with a book, where it's just you and the words. Can't get it at the movies, where the performers have been caught in aspic, and the snowman is cryogenically preserved. Only theater traps and enfolds...
It’s getting to be a Crimson rite of passage. Season begins, shy freshman joins team. Season ends, assertive freshman wins Ivy League Rookie of the Year...